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Category Archives: Supernatural

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 3 Episode 16 – “No Rest for the Wicked”

00:04 – The previouslies, as is tradition get the “Carry On Wayward Son” and “The Road So Far” treatment. It also encapsulates the entire season thus far.

01:08 – Still in the previouslies, we get a bigger focus on hellhounds than I thought. I worry things are really not going to go to well for Dean this episode.

01:51 – We open on the “Now” section of the episode with Dean running through the woods being pursued by something. Presumably a hellhound of some kind. Per the closed captioning, we are hearing: “[OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING],” which given the show’s love of classic rock feels like a missed opportunity to use “Run Through The Jungle.“

02:27 – To the surprise of no one, Dean’s jungle run was all a dream.

02:53 – Sam comes in to check on his brother and provide the information that good old Bobby has discovered a way to track down Lilith (who, as you’ll recall from last episode, the demon who holds the contract on Dean’s soul), with a mere 30 hours to spare.

03:10 – Dean suggests running for the border, including the phrase “What’s Spanish for ‘Donkey Show?'” Sam responds: “If we do save you, let’s never do that.” According to high lord Google, the answer to Dean’s question is “espectáculo de burro.”

03:50 – As our old friend “[OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYS]” Sam’s head does a tribute to Linda Blair in The Exorcist and starts to spin right round, like a record baby, right round as well as getting demonic visages almost as terrible as his hair. I’m assuming Dean is hallucinating again.

04:19 – Bobby’s demon locating device looks like some of 18th century naval navigation device. The sextant to hell, as it were.

04:34 – Lilith’s apparently in New Harmony, Indiana.

04:56 – Dean’s less sure on the Lilith angle, seeing how the source was Bela who wasn’t exactly Miss Honesty 2008. Also, they don’t have a way to deal with Lilith who wants “[Sam’s] giant head on a pike.” I assume they mean pike in the pointy stick sense, but I have a mental image of the fish with Jared Padalecki’s head and it’s far too enjoyable to let go of.

05:23 – Sam is done arguing with Dean and wants to summon Ruby, both to confirm that it is Lilith they want, and because Ruby’s Knife of Demon Stabbiness might be their best chance.

06:01 – Dean still vetoes the Ruby option.

06:44 – Looks like Sam’s performing a summoning ritual anyway. Good job that this is a family that gets on super well and has no secrets from each other at any time, isn’t it?

07:37 – And Ruby hath indeed been summoned.

08:05 – Ruby basically admits that she knew that Lilith held Dean’s contract, but she neglected to reveal that rather useful piece of exposition as the brothers Winchester would have attempted to attack Lilith unprepared and been two greasy blood smears on the ground, one of which would have terrible hair. also a big difference between Katie Cassidy’s performance as Ruby compared to Laurel in Arrow is that back in 2008, her face was still capable of motion.

09:19 – Ruby refuses to give up the Knife of Demon Stabbiness, instead claiming that Sam’s psychic powers are the key to defeating Lilith. You know, those psychic powers that haven’t been a thing since Ol’ Yellow Eyes died. Sam ain’t buying it.

10:13 – The self-admitted manipulative demon bitch Ruby claims she’s never lied to Sam. I find that on the implausible side of things.

10:35 – Dean walks in on the conversation between Sam and Ruby (whom he delightfully refers to as a “slutty little Yoda”) as he knew his little brother would ignore him and summon Ruby anyway.

11:21 – Ruby calls Dean a “dumb, spineless dick.” In fairness, most dicks are spineless (“boner,” after all is something of a misnomer.)

11:40 – The show goes all Itchy & Scratchy as Ruby, Sam & Dean fight and fight and fight.

12:41 – Dean used the fightiness to pickpocket Ruby’s Knife of Demon Stabbiness, and has kept Ruby inside a ceiling painted Devil’s Trap. Turns out that the spineless dick isn’t that dumb. The boys abandon Ruby to go hunt. She doesn’t take it as magnanimously as you might expect.

13:56 – Sam is less than enthusiastic about the plan of poking Lilith with a pointy stick, since last time she was able to sic a demon army on them. He wants to consider the psychic power option. Dean calls making deals with demons whenever one of them is in danger is a family flaw, and uses Daddy Winchester’s deal, plus his own deal as examples and doesn’t want Sam making the same mistake.

15:01 – Dean acknowledges that the fact that the Winchester’s are family and will do anything for each other is a weakness that their foes can and will exploit.

15:21 – Dean: “If we go down, then we go down swinging.” I feel like that’s been the undercurrent of much of his death wish behavior this season.

16:51 – Apparently “shore leave” for Lilith means psychologically torturing the family of the child that is her host body, including killing at least one of them (the grandmother, I would guess.)

17:14 – Also killed by Lilith “Freckles,” which I presume was a family pet and which now contains one heck of a lot less blood than it used to, if Lilith’s dress is any guide.

18:21 – Not a grandmother at 16:51, but a “mean old babysitter,” per Lilith’s description, which I shall take with a grain of salt or thirty.

18:50 – Bobby sabotaged the Impala so that the boy couldn’t go off half cocked, as he doesn’t consider himself a “ditchable prom date.” In other news, Bobby’s freaking awesome.

19:19 – Bobby asks Dean how many hallucinations he’s had, as that’s apparently a side effect of hellhounds.

20:11 – Sam wants to do the whole farewell speech thing. Dean says no, as he doesn’t want his potential last living day to be “socially awkward.”

22:42 – It seems that Dean is close enough to Hell that he can now see demon’s true faces. Which is why the cop got stabbed, for, lo, he was demon possessed.

23:08 – Dean has five hours left.

24:51 – Lilith killing off her host family again. This time it’s Grandpa’s neck that gets the hempless hemp fandango.

25:19 – Per Dean, who’s looking through the windows Lilith’s true face is even uglier than her behavior.

26:24 – I like the twistedness of Lilith’s preferred bed time story to be all about blood sacrifices.

26:49 – Demonic mailman just took a Knife of Demon Stabbiness to the gut, care of Sam Winchester.

27:11 – Same for neighbor demon.

27:38 – A suddenly appearing Ruby slams Dean against a fence and demands her knife. Sam points out that Dean doesn’t have the knife. Sam reinforces that point by producing said bloody knife.

28:26 – The argument between Sam and Ruby has drawn the attention of all of Lilith’s various demonic bodyguards. Things aren’t going too well for our heroes.

28:42 – Bobby creates a safe perimeter by the rather ingenious method of blessing the waters of a well and then feeding the newly holy water through the neighborhood’s sprinkler systems. How delightfully devious.

29:23 – Ruby, Sam and Dean are in the house and come across the father, who presumably isn’t a demon, as Dean doesn’t immediately attack him.

29:50 – Dean still punches out the father, mostly for his own good.

31:28 – Sam, knife in hand sees Lilith curled up on the bed with her host body’s mother. He hesitates rather than stabbing, despite the mother begging him to do it.

31:43 – Dean stops Sam, as he can see that Lilith is no longer possessing the little girl’s body. So where is she?

32:35 – A desperate Sam starts hectoring Ruby about what he’d have to do to use his psychic powers to take out Lilith. Ruby seemed confused momentarily before rallying and seeing that it’s too late for that. The hesitation makes me wonder if Lilith has possessed Ruby. Can a demon possess a body that already has a demonic occupant? After all, it feels like Lilith would be a lot more powerful than Ruby…

37:40 – Sam goes to finish off Lilith with the Knife of Demon Stabbiness. Before he can do so, Lilith exits Ruby’s body in the usual gruesome cloud of black smoke fashion. Ruby’s body drops, dead, to the floor alongside Dean’s.

38:04 – A crying Sam cradles Dean’s dead body in his arms.

38:44 – We see Dean chained up in Hell screaming for somebody to help him.

38:50 – Dean in Hell yells Sam’s name and we cut to the credits. End of the episode, and of the season.

Wow. Just wow. That’s one heck of season finale. Plus Dean’s tortured bleeding face in Hell screaming Sam’s name is an amazing shot to finish on. This was great episode, even though not a whole lot technically happened for most of it, and even the ticking clock that represented Dean’s remaining time on this mortal coil didn’t do a whole lot to build the tension. I’d argue that they probably should have referenced the time left a little more often. Even without that though, the combination of Eric Kripke’s writing and Kim Manners’ direction helped ratchet up the stakes and it did leave an uneasy feeling with this viewer of first “how are they going to get out of this?” And as more and more of the episode passed the question became “Are they going to get out of this?” After all, this is a show that has killed its main characters before, and ended the first season finale with the demons victorious and all three Winchesters apparently mortally wounded.

This is the second season finale that’s left the apparent demonic big bad at large (Lilith here, Ol’ Yellow Eyes in season one), and therefore could arguably be seen as a defeat for the brothers. Of course, this episode opens up a whole raft of questions, aside from the most obvious one of “How will they get Dean out of Hell?” We have the issues of “Where’s Ruby?”, “Where’s Lilith?”, “What is Lilith’s plan? Does she have plans for Sam and/or Dean?” Slightly less demonic in nature, i’m really curious to see how Sam handles life without his big brother, as we’ve already seen him go to a super dark place without Dean in the Trickster’s reality earlier this season. Will he go that way again?

I have to assume that the powers that be knew Supernatural was going to be renewed for a fourth season, or they don’t pull off that kind of an ending. I’m definitely looking forward to season four to see how they answer all my questions. I’m also aware that season four features the debut of Misha Collins as a character that a lot of people have assured me I will like before I tell them that I’m on my first watch through and am trying not to get spoiled. I would hope to get season four written up faster than i did season three, but we all know how unlikely that is.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 3 Episode 15 – “Time is on My Side”

00:56 – Unsurprisingly, as we barrel through towards the end of the season, our previouslies montage covers a lot of ground, most notably Dean’s demon deal, Lilith, Ruby (who I tend to think of as Black Canary, but that’s what three seasons of Arrow does to you) and Bela.

01:26 – Our teaser opens with two plastic surgeons, doing what fictional plastic surgeons do best – being total douchebags. I’m okay with one or both being the Inevitable Teaser Death.

02:00 – Douchebag Surgeon #1 just got bundled into the trunk of his car by a mysterious black clad figure.

02:42 – Our surgeon appears to be now wandering through hospital corridors wearing a black robe that’s clearly too short for him (seriously, if there was an iota less fabric, his testicles would be on display for all to see), that’s the least of his worries as he’s bleeding from a wound that we don’t see but is gnarly enough to make the nurse freak out.

03:13 – Our heroic leads are torturing somebody for information. I assume it’s either a demon or vampire, as the torture is splashing him with (assumed holy) water, which isn’t quite what water boarding is, and is essentially an annoyance for those of us of a less supernatural nature.

03:24 – It’s obvious to me that Lilith is going to be the contract holder, because that’s how TV works. Kinda surprised the brothers Winchester haven’t figured that much out themselves.

04:57 – Demon is exorcized offscreen because he wasn’t important.

05:37 – Teaser surgeon was the Inevitable Teaser Death, suffering from an acute case of Liver-torn-out-itis. that can be a real bitch.

05:43 – The tearer apparently died in 1981 per fingerprint records.

05:57 – Dean suspects zombies, and is surprised Sam is taking a break from soul saving attempts to go on a hunt. He approves though.

08:05 – The brothers are interviewing a guy who had his kidney stolen, and woke up in the urban legend cliche of a bathtub full of ice.

10:09 – Sam and Dean do the exposition conversation thing about an organ-stealing, possibly immortal Doctor Benton who Daddy Winchester had once hunted down and taken the heart out of. Apparently such impromptu cardiac surgery didn’t take. I’m more distracted by the burger Dean’s trying to eat as it actually looks like the ones in the pictures on fast food menus.

12:07 – Doctor Benton doesn’t seem to believe in anesthetic, as he starts his scalpeling on a runner while the dude is conscious. It looks like he’s taking a heart though, so I guess niceties aren’t necessary. Benton has surprisingly civil bedside manner for a dude with a stitched together face.

13:50 – Bobby gets in touch with the boys to let them now that he’s tracked down the ever-loathsome Bela. Dean immediately wants to follow up on that lead. Sam seems less keen, which strikes me as odd. I assume the terrible-haired one is up to something.

14:15 – Yep. Sounds like Sam has been thinking like a lawyer. He wants to steal Benton’s immortality idea for Dean. I guess the logic is that if Dean can’t die, then his soul gets to stay out of hell.

14:56 – Dean points out the minor detail that if Dean backs out of the deal (which immortality kind of does) than Sam dies. Which kind of defeats the point of Dean having made the deal in the first place.

15:45 – Looks like the boys are splitting up, which never backfires, just ask Fred Jones or Velma Dinkley.

16:34 – We follow Dean meeting with Bobby’s old hunter/hermit “friend.” Who’s more than a little paranoid.

18:03 – Paranoid hunter, who’s name is Rufus, but has now been dubbed “Black Burt Reynolds” by my viewing companion is much more amenable to a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue.

19:27 – Black Burt Reynolds knows stuff, and has a somewhat nihilistic viewpoint on what the end is for hunters, basically they “ain’t got no happy endings” (Insert your own massage parlor joe here.)

20:14 – Sam’s in a rental car and is hunting for Doctor Benton in some brightly lit woods.

34:07, Dean shoots Benton before he can scoop Sam’s eyes out. It doesn’t kill the Doctor, but it does mean that sam doesn’t have to wear an eyepatch any time soon.

35:21 – That’s kind of innovative. Dean stabs Benton with a knife through the heart. It (predictably) has no effect n the immortal doc. However, the chloroform that Dean had dipped the knife in gets pumped throughout Benton’s bloodstream, and so the Doctor falls unconscious.

36:14 – The boys have Benton strapped to his own operating table. the doctor tries to wheedle his way out of it by tempting them with the immortality formula. Sam calls Dean off to the side for a private conversation. I think I can guess how this will go…

36:54 – Sam contends that the immortality thing would buy them time. Dean flat out states that he’d rather go to hell than live like Benton as an inhuman monster.

37:56 – Doctor Benton has been buried, chained up in an old refrigerator (which, as Indiana Jones has taught us, can ride out nuclear explosions) pretty deep underground. I imagine he won’t particularly enjoy not being able to die given that circumstance.

38:58 – Bela broke into the boys’ motel room and shot what she thought was the two of them in their beds. It turns out that the bed’s are occupied by blow up dolls. I assume that Dean expected her to steal the motel receipt back at 30:27.

39:33 – Yeah, he knew. And that plant Dean spotted at 30:21 is used to keep hellhounds away.

39:51 – So it seems that Bela made a demon deal of her own ten years ago to have her parents die. And now it’s come due, hence the anti-hellhound measures…

40:43 – Seems Bela tried to buy off her soul with the Colt, but the demon said that wasn’t good enough, she had to kill Sam as well. And now she has a mere two minutes before her time runs out.

40:52 – Dean points out that, even though it was most definitely undeserved, if Bela had come to them sooner with the Colt and asked for help, they would probably have been able to save both Bela and Dean.

41:07 – As I assumed the demon that holds Dean’s contract is indeed Lilith. Who apparently holds every deal, including Bela’s.

42:04 – And Bela’s now done for.

A strange episode this one, in that it almost feels like two ‘B’ plots grafted together. The idea of using immortality as a “get out of Hell free” card is definitely an interesting one and it’s smart for the show to countenance it, but the organ-harvesting doctor story feels like it’s been done to death, or at least variants of it have. Off the top of my head, I can think of Eugene Victor Tooms from The X-Files and Ronald Meltzer from Angel. Admittedly, they’re not exact matches but close enough.

The other stuff exploring some more of Bela’s backstory was more interesting, though mostly as set up for the season finale next episode. I recognized that there were trying to make Bela at least a little bit sympathetic, which made me assume that she was not long for this mortal coil. Having her be the victim of a demonic deal and thus a parallel to Dean was a nice touch, it also helped explain some of her motivations more. I was also left rather flat by the fact that Lilith was the demon holding dean’s contract, simply because there really weren’t any other candidates since Ol’ Yellow eyes was eliminated.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 3 Episode 14 – “Long-Distance Call”

01:10 – Our teaser starts with a slightly haggard looking guy pouring himself a drink, pretty much guaranteeing himself Inevitable Teaser Death status.

02:05 – Inevitable Teaser Death guy seems very uneasy taking a phone call from a woman who’s saying “Come to me.” He mentions a wife in a context that suggests the woman on the phone is a lover or similar.

03:18 – Phone calling woman has an impressive level of persistence, especially when you consider Inevitable Teaser Death Guy has smashed he phone up AND torn its plug out of the wall, yet she’s still calling and the phone is still ringing. I suspect she’s an “unflushable.”

03:56 – Inevitable Teaser Death guy lives up to his name by putting a loaded gun to chis chin and pulling the trigger.

04:55 – Apparently Dean’s been on the phone (and nothing dates these episodes like the cell phones the boys use) with Bobby discussing the case of Inevitable Teaser Death guy. They think there’s a spirit involved. Dean wants to take the case. Sam points out that they’re already on a case, breaking Dean’s demon deal, though nothing much has happened on that front lately. So the brothers hash out that argument again. I’m sure you know the beats by now, so I won’t bother recapping them.

05:21 – Dean reveals to Sam that Ruby told him (Dean) that there was no saving him from Hell.

08:16 – Turns out that persistent phone woman from the teaser was Inevitable Teaser Death Guy’s high school girlfriend who died after being hit by a drunk driver. She was cremated, which I guess means that half of the salt’n’burn routine has been taken care of for the boys. I’d also assume that’s why they did a funeral pyre for dead Hunters. Harder to come back as an angry spirit if your remains are already ash.

09:10 – Speaking of Ash, the id’s that Sam and Dean use as phone company employees are Mr. Campbell & Mr. Raimi. Seems a nice homage to what I imagine was an inspiration for the show, even if it is a divergence from the typical rock music aliases Dean favors.

09:32 – Dean tells the skeevy phone tech that platinum membership to bustyasianbeauties.com is “worth every penny. (Note: I have no idea if that’s a real website, and if it is, I imagine it’s probably Not Safe For Work, or for those of you under 18…)

10:39 – So apparently the century old phone number (SHA33) that persistent teaser phone woman used has called at least ten different houses in the past few weeks. I gather one of the numbers called was 867-5309…

12:16 – Young woman from the first house Sam visits calls his bluff about working for the phone company based on his driving a rental (which seems fair) and wearing a cheap suit (personally, I thought it was a pretty nice suit, but I’m not exactly a fashion maven, after all I’m blogging in jeans and a grey t-shirt)

13:38 – Young girl has been getting calls from the dead herself. In this case the deceased is her mother, who passed three years ago.

14:10 – Lot of calls from dead people in town. Dean gets some serious side eye from a passing woman as he mentions how one of the calls “redefined [Dean’s] understanding of the word ‘necrophilia.'”

14:26 – Dean gets his own call from a dead person – Daddy Winchester!

15:21 – Dean looks desperate to hope that it really is Daddy Winchester contacting them from beyond the grave. Sam seems more skeptical.

16:44 – We’re introduced to Edison’s “spirit phone” thanks to Dean reading a tourist leaflet after Sam’s research came up with bupkis. I assume it’s a red herring as there’s too much episode left.

18:27 – Daddy Winchester calls dean back (the terrible-haired one is conveniently sleeping) and berates him over the demon deal, which he’s apparently aware of.

18:46 – Daddy Winchester apparently has a way for Dean to break the demon deal without endangering Sam. I’m suspicious when Daddy refers to the demon that holds Dean’s contract as “he,” as I was under the impression that said demon was Lilith who is not a he.

20:18 – The girl from 13:38 is getting some instant messages from her mother, they seem to be consistent with the mother “haunting” her, including one particular great shot of the mother reflected in a computer monitor and grabbing the girl’s shoulder whilst not being present.

20:35 – The turned off monitor is lighting up with “come to me” messages similar to what Inevitable Teaser Death guy received before living up to his nickname. It’d be spooky and atmospheric if I wasn’t distracted by the poor font choice of Copperplate Gothic.

22:20 – Dean’s hope that this will get him away from the demon deal is heartbreaking to behold. Though he does have a valid point about the alleged demon killing exorcism ritual in that Daddy Winchester is the only one of them that’s been to Hell, so it’s a good source.

23:29 – Sam and Dean are having a raised voice argument on proof vs. blind faith. Whilst I’m a bigger fan of Dean (as you must have noticed reading these), I side with Sam here. The boys need some damned proof.

25:01 – Apparently the weird phone number can even call a kid’s toy phone and be the little boy’s Mommy on the other end of the line. I think the boy is supposed to be the girl’s little brother but I’m not certain.

25:35 – Apparently mom wanted the girl to kill herself to come to the mother. So whoever is on the other end of these calls must have a suicide fetish, which doesn’t bode well for Dean, who already has kind of a death wish…

25:57 – Apparently, Sam’s figured out what is responsible for the calls and he knows it isn’t the mother.

26:57 – Little brother seems to be in a trance crossing a busy street. Whatever is calling has apparently decided he’ll be the next victim.

26:58 – assuming it isn’t Dean who has ignored Sam’s advice to stay put in the motel room.

27:24 – Sam just saved the little kid from getting run down by a big old yellow semi-truck.

27:34 – Per Sam, it isn’t Daddy Winchester, it’s a Crocotta, which is a scavenger that mimics loved ones as apposed to being a delicious sandwich as Dean had hoped.

27:56 – We get a very Exorcist shot of Sam walking through steam in an alleyway as he approaches the phone company where the brothers Winchester suspect the Crocotta to be.

29:36 – You know, it feels like Sam gets tied to chairs a whole lot on this show.

30:37 – Skeevy phone tech is stabbed and has his soul drained by the phone company boss. Proving my hypothesis that the phone company must be Comcast as they appear to only care about soulless monsters.

32:06 – The Crocotta pretends to be a little girl calling her father at what appears to be a police station and telling him that “the man who killed me” is at the house. I’m assuming it’s Dean, and the Crocotta wants to make the two of them kill each other which is an obvious win-win-win situation for it.

32:58 – The point our villain makes about information floating out there just waiting to be “plucked” is even more relevant now with the ubiquity of both smart phones and social media in addition to good old fashioned phone calls, letters and emails.

34:26 – Dean and angry possible cop guy pull an Itchy & Scratchy in that they fight, and fight and fight and fight….

36:12 – Plenty of cross cutting between Dean and cop man fighting (though Dean seems to have figured out his mistake) and Sam and Crocotta fighting. Sam seems to be getting the worst of it…

36:40 – Sam gets luck in driving the Crocotta’s head into a metal spike on the wall, killing it handily and kind of bloodily for the CW.

37:22 – The brothers are reunited and it feels so good. Except it kind of doesn’t as both are nursing their fighting wounds.

38:28 – Dean unburdens himself about his fears about Hell to Sam.

39:07 Dean: “I mean the only person that can get me out of this thing is me.” Sam: “And me.”

A strong episode with a pretty intriguing and propulsive mystery at its core. I figured that it wasn’t going to be Daddy Winchester on the line nor would Dean be getting out of his demon deal fairly early on in the episode, but that’s due to simple logic of how TV works. You wouldn’t blow either of those things until the season finale, which is only a couple of episodes away thanks to the writer’s strike that shortened the season. I’m going to assume that the season follows the pattern of the last two and that the next two episodes will effectively be one two-part season finale, which means there’s a lot to resolve, most notably the deal with Ruby, what Lilith is up to, what Bela is doing with the Colt, that whole escaped demon army thing, oh, and whether Dean is going to hell. Seems like a lot to get through in 80ish mn

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 3 Episode 13 – “Ghostfacers”

00:15 – In the previouslies we see the incredibly dull dorktastic duo back from the haunted house episode of the first season. I’m immediately predisposed against this episode.

01:10 – The teaser is apparently a spoof of reality TV type Ghost Hunter shows. It looks like they’re trying to make the dorktastic duo a slightly less one note thing.

02:22 – Okay, the Ghostfacers theme song is glorious in its sheer terribleness. The “We’re who you’re gonna call” line is a little bit on the nose, and I did crack up at the shot of Dean including a pixelated bird-flipping.

03:17 – I guess the entire episode is gonna be framed as the pilot of Ghostfacers, I like shows within shows as a conceit, but this is either gonna work well or crash hard.

05:04 – The producers have nailed the reality TV camera language with the fake tension, and confessionals, as well as the handheld cam look.

07:18 – The Winchester brothers entrance in the Impala to the dulcet tones of Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band,” just succeeds in making Sam, Dean & Sam’s Terrible Hair look absolutely badass next to the Ghostfacer group. Though the expansion of the Ghostfacer group from the duo to a quintet does make them a lot more tolerable.

07:31 – The Ghostfacer group are apparently investigating a haunted house where the ghosts only show up on February 29th. Though I’m not sure plot details are relevant on what’s clearly trying (and mostly succeeding so far) at being a comedy episode.

10:05 – I’ve never watched the type of “reality” show that this episode is spoofing, but I can’t help but feel that this parody dialog is basically lifted verbatim from such a thing, especially the stuff about “entities.”

11:50 – Dean freaking out the Ghostfacers by pretending to be a cop works really well with how gruff Ackles sounds here. I wonder if they amped that up in the sound mixing for contrast with the overall dweebishness of the ‘facers.

12:12 – The dorktastic duo recognize the brothers Winchester. Nice call back. Also pretty nice is the increased profanity levels (that are being bleeped because the Ghostfacers pilot doesn’t want to fall foul of FCC rules)

12:56 – The boys are also not taking Ed Zeddmore’s “We were here first” defense very seriously…

13:15 – Looks like something vaguely supernatural is happening with a guy in ’50s clothing being shot and disappearing. I’d guess it was either a ghost or something being projected on film to juice the Ghostfacers sale-ability as a pilot.

14:21 – Sam’s actual research freaks out Ed a little bit as it aligns with the fake research they’ve done, and as Sam so eloquently puts it: “Starting at midnight, your friends are going to die.”

15:30 – Sam and Dean are convinced the 1950s dude was a death echo, which is a little strange as no one was shot at this house.

16:51 – It’s now midnight and one of the Ghostfacers just got ganked by whatever entity is haunting the house, which by the way Sam & Dean are acting is something of a malevolent spirit.

17:07 – The repeated overlapping dialog and shaking camera work is reminding me of The Blair Witch Project, which is a movie that I personally hated. Mostly because 1) it’s not scary in any way and 2) You want the cast to die quickly because they’re jerks and at least then the damned movie w ill be over.

18:18 – This place has multiple death echoes happening, which Dean seems to think is seriously unusual. (Even for them)

20:12 – Apparently the last owner of this haunted house was a hospital janitor for twenty years. Doesn’t explain the multiple random death echoes though.

20:40 – Janitor guy died in 1964, had c-rations and survivalist literature, so he’s either a doomsday nutcase or a Hunter. Given the nature of this episode, my money’s on the former.

21:17 – Yeah, he’s a nutbar, sounds like he had been bringing bodies back from the hospital after his shift. I assume that janitor guy is what’s haunting the place, and therefore what killed the one Ghostfacer guy.

22:36 – Sam and one of the original dorktastic duo are missing after the usual signs of ghostly activity. Cut to commercial with the surprisingly catchy Ghostfacers sting.

23:42 – Nice fake romance angle for the “reality” show.

25:07 – The ghost had apparently stuffed the corpses he stole from the hospital and arranged them into an adorable tea party tableaux. For tonight, the roles of the White Rabbit and Alice will be played by Ghostfacer Corbett and Sam Winchester.

29:55 – The surviving Ghostfacers are freaked out over Corbett’s death echo, understandably. I think they realize that shit just got real.

31:30 – One of the dorktastic duo actually mans up and tries to put Corbett’s death echo to rest.

33:16 – “You got to go be gay for that poor, dead intern.” Which both made me laugh and explains the name of my 2015 GiShWHEs team.

34:36 – Looks like Corbett’s ghost has been placated by the power of friendship…

35:07 – And Ghost Corbett has managed to absorb janitor ghost and send them both to rest. The day is saved!

36:15 – The fireside chat imagery for the Ghostfacers epilogue is kind of brilliant.

38:22 – “King of the Impossible” is a wonderful epitaph.

40:39 – Nice electro-magnetic erasure there.

While definitely not as strong as the three episodes preceding it, this one was a pretty fine comedy episode. The framing device was a lot of fun, and as you can tell above, the guest star characters kind of grew on me as this thing went on. Nothing spectacular, and no links to ongoing seasonal plots of any kind, so definitely filler in the purest sense, butt pretty bloody good filler for all that.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 3 Episode 12 – “Jus in Bello”

00:07 – A bit of a focus on the FBI dude who’s been the Javert to the Winchester boys for a while now in the previouslies.

00:35 – We also get stuff back to the Devil’s gate/demon army plot I’ve been missing, including the demon origin of Ruby from the witchy episode.

00:59 – Once again the teaser opens on the Winchester Boys, and once again I feel deprived of the Inevitable Teaser Death.

01:46 – They’re hunting for Bela, and therefore the Colt but are too late, and Bela’s calling the telephone of the motel room the boys are ransacking purely to gloat at them. She truly is loathsome.

02:20 – And Bela apparently ratted the boys out to the FBI as she knew the location they would be at. Excuse my misogyny for a moment, but she really is a bitch.

05:16 – The station secretary, Nancy, clearly has a bigger role to play seeing how we keep getting anvilicious cuts to her face, cross necklace and rosary.

06:30 – Henriksen’s superior officer is throwing him some serious shade about the whole “bus” plan. Which is a brave move to make when your hair exceeds the Sam Winchester Standard For Coiffure Terribleness.

07:27 – Dean’s response to Henriksen celebrating seeing the boys chained up is just perfect: “You kinky son of a bitch, you know we don’t swing that way.” Though try and tell half of the fandom that…

15:08 – Sam’s asking Nancy for a towel. Clearly he and Dean are not hoopy froods.

16:01 – Using the towel to smack Nancy into the cell bars like that did seem excessively cruel of Sam, but I think that’s due to the differing physicality of the actors rather than the script/writing.

16:21 – Apparently it was all a ruse to steal Nancy’s rosary.

16:56 – Dean points out that this is the first time demons have come hunting for the boys instead of vice versa. I suspect it won’t be the last.

17:39 – The sheriff is going to let the boys out of their cell, so that all of them can attempt to escape the siege. I assumed the sheriff was possessed until an actually possessed Henriksen shows up and plugs the sheriff in the head. Our heroes respond with their usual pragmatism by trying to drown Henriksen in the toilet while Sam does the exorcism thing. Apparently the terrible-haired one has the Latin memorized.

18:12 – The entire station just saw the black demon cloud exit Henriksen, which would seem to corroborate that whole “it was demons” alibi that the Winchesters had.

22:13 – Judging by the amount of black and pink smoke, there’s an outrageous number of demons here. Truly, truly outrageous.

22:34 – Sam seems to be spray-painting Devil’s Traps all over the station floor, which seems like a good preparedness drill.

23:40 – Dean’s handing out anti-possession amulets to the police & Henriksen The brothers don’t need them as they apparently have anti-possession tattoos, which I’m sure mean they’ll never ever be possessed again over the course of the show’s ten (and counting) seasons…

24:15 – The camera shots of the possessed folk with the black eyes outside the windows are very Romero-esque.

24:44 – “Fighting off demons with condiments,” does sound absurd when you phrase it that way, sir.

25:54 – Henriksen’s reaction to discovering that the supernatural elements are real seems to be despair at wasting his life, which isn’t a character direction that I expected.

26:52 – Yay! It’s Ruby. who Sam claims is there to help them while Dean and Henriksen take the not unreasonable position of “kill her, she’s a demon.” Based on her last few appearances, I’m not convinced either side is wrong. I really want to know what Ruby’s deal is before she went and failed Starling City.

27:50 – Ruby demonsplains to Dean and the assembled forces that there’s thirty or so demons (out of the about a hundred we saw unleashed) gunning for the Winchester boys and that they were sent by Lilith. Sam already knows about Lilith, but it’s news to the rest of them.

28:27 – Ruby doesn’t take news of the Colt’s theft very well…

29:26 – Ruby’s non-Colt plan would vaporize every demon within a certain radius, including herself. It just requires a virgin sacrifice. Cold. As. Ice.

29:40 – To no one but Dean’s surprise, the only virgin in the vicinity is Nancy. Betcha didn’t see that coming, assuming that you’re deaf, dumb and blind. If that is the case, how mean is your pinball?

30:43 – Nancy comes over all Spock and adopts a “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” viewpoint, which the boys vehemently disagree with, as they don’t want Nancy dying which tends to happen if a ritual involves having your heart cut out.

31:06 – Sam is less vehement than he might be…

31:55 – Dean doesn’t have a great alternative to the “sacrifice a virgin” plan, but he does have an alternative. My alternative of turning up the Winchester charm and making sure Nancy’s virtue no longer holds for the spell doesn’t even get mentioned. Deans “plan” is: Open the doors, let them all in, and we fight.” I can’t help but feel that might amp up ye olde body count over the sacrifice plan.

33:10 – Ruby’s reaction is to leave the place with her trusty demon-killing knife because she’s not going to watch everybody die in a futile pitched battle.

36:01 – I think they’re trying to funnel the possessed into a central location.

36:44 – It sort of works, though the demons seem to have the upper tendril until Henriksen starts playing Sam reciting the exorcism chant over the station’s PA/loudspeaker system.

38:01 – The mass exorcism seems to have worked.

39:02 – Henriksen’s going to stop the FBI manhunt and fugitive subplot by claiming that the boys died in the chopper when it went up in flames. So now they’ll be presumed dead.

39:44 – Lilith’s chosen meat suit is a small child, I’d guess maybe ten or so. She has white eyes instead of the regular black eyes of evil, so you can tell she’s an important demon.

39:54 – … if her killing everybody left at the police station with a single gesture wasn’t a clue.

40:00 – Ruby visits the boys in a motel to break the Lilith news.

41:45 – Ruby might have a valid point with how her plan had a lower body count than the boys plan did. However her saying “You strike fast and you don’t leave any survivors. So no one can go running to tell the boss.” Makes me wonder. I assume Lilith is the boss in question, and the only demon we saw definitively survive was Ruby herself…

Three fantastic episodes in a row. While this one wasn’t as character-driven as the last couple, it did address the lingering demon army plot in truly spectacular fashion, and we got to see the first appearance of the presumed Big Bad of the season with Lilith’s explosive debut towards the end. This was a solid episode in a very action movie kind of a way, and very plot driven, which makes my entries above more recap than anything else. Also, interesting to see the fugitive narrative thread being tied off so neatly, and this had some solid work on Henriksen to the point that killing him off actually had an impact.

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 3 Episode 11 – “Mystery Spot”

00:13 – First thing I notice in the previously montage is a couple of shots of the Trickster villain from one of last season’s episodes. We also get the usual stuff with the demon deal, Bela and the stolen Colt, and Ruby.

00:51 – The episode forgoes the usual teaser (and therefore the Inevitable Teaser Death) and cuts from the “NOW” text to Sam waking up in a motel room to “Heat of the Moment” while Dean tells him to rise and shine. Unless Sam and/or Dean is going to be our Inevitable “Teaser” “Death.”

02:30 – Dean’s irritated that they aren’t hunting that Colt-stealing scumbag, Bela. Sam’s equally annoyed but points out they have no leads on her whereabouts whatsoever, so they might as well work on the hunt they do have leads on.

3:03 – Which is to do with disappearances from a Broward County Mystery Spot. I’m assuming that it’s not that important despite holding titular place in the episode as the scene ends with the devastating site of a bottle of hot sauce smashing on the floor. As it wasn’t Frank’s Original Red Hot, I say it’s no great loss.

03:43 – The boys strolling past various slightly weird happenings on the street put my in mind of this music video and make me think the episode was running short. We get some throwaway exposition about magnetic fields and Bermuda Triangles and such but if the show isn’t paying attention to it, neither will I.

05:00 – The search into the Mystery Spot is exactly as fruitless as Dean predicted. Though it does attract the owner’s attention.

05:12 – Said owner’s packing a shotgun and just blasted Dean in the chest with it.

05:36 – It’s a fatal shot, which I guess does make Dean the Inevitable Teaser Death if you’re generous with the definition of “Teaser.” It also seems like it’d screw the whole demon deal thing if Dean checks out of this mortal coil before his year is up. Means the deal is broken at least partially, right? I’d assume it still means Dean goes to hell at the year mark, but perhaps he gets to kick back in Purgatory for a while first? Assuming this show has a Purgatory, I’m not sure how Catholic the Supernatural version of Christian theological stuff is.

05:50 – We get a repeat of Sam waking up to “Heat of the Moment” and I figure out that I’m going to be watching the Supernatural version of Groundhog Day, which explains why Sam’s terrible hair reminds me of Punxsutawney Phil.

06:06 – Sam’s reactions to the Asia song show that he remembers the teaser events, but Dean doesn’t.

07:41 – The scene’s mostly playing out as the episode has from the end of the previouslies, though Sam’s changed his order and Dean’s noticed that his little brother is kind of vacant right now.

08:12 – This time Sam catches the inferior hot sauce before it hits the floor.

09:00 – Dean wonders if it relates to Sam’s psychic vision powers, though those have been dormant since Ol’ Yellow Eyes was destroyed. Sam says it was too vivid for that.

09:31 – Sam is desperate to go to the Mystery Spot before it closes. Interestingly, he doesn’t mention that his vision/premonition/memory included Dean dying.

09:44 – Hilariously, after Dean acquiesces to Sam’s wishes, the elder Winchester gets slammed into by a car…

10:07 – …and promptly dies again.

10:09 – Sam wakes up to I Got You Babe Heat of the Moment playing again, yadda, yadda, yadda.

10:33 – First change in this iteration is that Sam orders for Dean.

10:50 – The boys namecheck Groundhog Day, making this episode officially an homage and not a rip off.

11:48 – After catching the hot sauce, Sam comes clean about Dean dying being the thing that’s closing out this particular time loop for him.

12:47 – Sam tells Dean about the first iteration of Dean’s death we saw with the shotgun blast while they’re doing the sidewalk walk. I would have thought a sane person would cover this in a diner conversation. Granted “I’m watching you die in a Groundhog loop,” is a flimsy definition of ‘sane’…

12:59 – Sam drag’s Dean’s ass back out of the street before the cart can hit him this time.

13:26 – Dean: “Did it look cool, like in the movies?” Sam: “You peed yourself.” Dean: “Of course I peed myself. Man gets hit by a car, you think he has full control over his bladder? Come on!” – For some reason this exchange had me convulsing with laughter.

14:28 – Sam’s interview with the owner of the Mystery Spot is kinda loaded with intensity for someone who is ostensibly a newspaper reporter.

14:54 – To the point that Dean has to practically drag him out of there.

15:17 – Dean observing that his death appears to be what triggers the loop goes for the logical approach of trying to keep himself alive until the end of the day.

15:30 – And is immediately crushed to death by the desk that the movers couldn’t fit through a doorway earlier.

15:59 – Sam tries to alter this iteration by going back to sleep in the “Heat of the Moment.”

16:48 – Dean switches up his diner order in this attempt to break the loop…

19:19 – Sam’s been researching all the people they encounter on this special Tuesday. Since this is apparently his 100th time through, he’s had plenty of time to get very familiar.

20:24 – The “speaking in union” bit was hilarious. And I don’t want to know what Sam does with his morning ruler.

21:01 – Sam’s frustrated that none of his actions and he’s taken like all of the possible ones at this point seem able to prevent Dean’s death nor bring on a Wednesday, which as we all know, is the Peak of the Week. (Hump Day? What’s that?)

21:36 – Dean turns back to the blonde he kept bumping into to talk to her, which is apparently the first time he’s tried that in a hundred days…

22:20 – Apparently the guy whose disappearance led the boys to the Mystery Spot in the first place was some kind of skeptic journalist who liked to debunk things like UFO sightings and mystery spots.

23:38 – Sam is mildly freaking out due to a change in the diner, one of the customers went with strawberry syrup instead of the maple he’d had the 100 days prior. Frankly, maple is always the best choice, so Sam’s right to be appalled.

23:43 – “Heat of the Moment” immediately Sam mentions the change to Dean for some reason. No death though.

23:58 – Dude’s back on the maple train.

24:34 – Sam reacts calmly to the guy changing his order back by chasing the guy down and threatening him with a wooden stake at his throat. Sam tells the guy that Sam knows what the guy really is.

25:15 – Sam identifies the old guy as a Trickster, and he morphs into the Trickster we saw before and points pout that they didn’t actually kill him.

26:07 – The Trickster says this thing isn’t about killing Dean, it’s about making Sam suffer from seeing Dean die over and over again. That’s kind of harsh, but it seems to have worked thus far. Sammy hasn’t taken the multiple Dean deaths well.

27:00 – Sam decides that the easier option to break the time loop is just to kill the Trickster. The Trickster isn’t down with that and snaps his fingers. Sam awakens on a Wednesday to “Back in Time” by Huey Lewis and the News.

27:25 – Dean has no recollection of the loop, as usual, so finds Sam’s enthusiasm for Huey’s music to be a little bit on the nutso side.

28:20 – Even though it’s no longer the temporally-challenged Tuesday, Dean gets shot by a mugger.

28:38 – …and still dies. Sam doesn’t wake up as the Wednesday continues.

29:11 – Six months have passed. Sam’s driving the Impala solo and is basically expressionlessly angry.

29:39 – Per Bobby’s message, Sam’s been doing a decent job hunting but has been ignoring everyone for at least three of those six months.

30:21 – Sam’s clearly on a one man crusade to take down the Trickster. Bobby’s warning against one man going on a crusade like this solo. I think we’re supposed to parallel this with Daddy Winchester’s obsession with Ol’ Yellow Eyes, which eventually killed him.

30:53 – Sam gets the message from Bobby that he wanted: “I found him.”

31:38 – Bobby has apparently discovered a summoning ritual to bring the Trickster, it just needs a gallon of fresh blood to work…

32:20 – Though it does seem like Bobby set it up just so he could see Sam and probe the depths of his obsession. Bobby’s voice seems mildly “off” to me and we know the Trickster is a shape shifter…

32:49 – Bobby offers himself as the blood supply so Sam doesn’t kill a civilian.

34:15 – Sam stabs Bobby with a stake rather than the proffered knife because he’s sure it isn’t actually Bobby.

34:33 – Though he has doubts when nothing happens to Bobby’s body for a good few seconds.

34:35 – Then the Trickster appears, confirming that Sam’s last six months have been one of the Trickster’s warped realities.

35:30 – The Trickster claims that Dean’s still dead and not coming back. Sam begs to be taken back to that Wednesday.

36:09 – Apparently the Trickster’s motivation is to expose how unhealthy that brothers co-dependent relationship is for them. They are each other’s weakness and the bad guys know that. I don’t think he’s the first antagonist on the show to voice that thought, but his illustration of it is rather more stark.

37:06 – Sam awakens on the Wednesday with Huey.

38:00 – And prevents Dean from going to the Impala alone….

I’m a sucker for twisty-turny timey-wimey plots, and while this was technically a filler episode when compared to the whole season, it was a really, really good filler episode, which goes a long way to keeping me engaged, even if the time loop is kind of hard to blog about.

I did find the tonal shifts from the first serious Dean death, to the wacky montage of increasingly funny and improbable ways to die and then to Sam as full on embittered crusading hunter a little much to handle as they seemed just too abrupt, particularly the latter and felt like more could have been done with it. I think I’d have preferred a “Three months later” and then another “Three months later” time skip to the singular six month jump we got. Much praise goes to Padalecki’s acting as he nailed the evolution of Sam’s character as the episodes various timelines went on.

Interestingly, this is the second Trickster episode and he’s still left alive and unbanished by the end which makes me wonder if he’ll figure into the larger arcs the show has, like that barely mentioned unleashed army of demons thing…

A quick note by way of introduction may be required here. For quite some time now, certain members of the Richmond WriMos have been trying to persuade me to watch the CW show Supernatural. I have relented and am now embarking on watching Supernatural via the wonders of Netflix. This series of posts will simply be my first impressions, almost stream of consciousness style, presented in the form of the time elapsed in the episode and my thoughts expressed as bullet points. It’s effectively live tweeting the episodes except I don’t have to stick to 140 characters or fewer. So without further ado here’s my take on:

Season 3 Episode 10 – “Dream A Little Dream of Me”

00:15 – First surprise of the previouslies was seeing Lisa, Dean’s ex. She kind of felt like a one episode wonder, but this hints at recurring status at least.

01:07 – We open the teaser with Bobby on a hunt, which has me worried that he may become the Inevitable Teaser Death, though I would think something like that would be more apt to happen 1. in the main meat of an episode and 2. in the penultimate or final episode of a season.

01:44 – Okay, the rapid jump scare of the screaming woman (a banshee? Does this show do that?) followed by the smash cut to Bobby asleep on the cleanest, whitest hotel bed sheets I’ve ever seen got me.

02:20 – Bobby appears to be dreaming the screaming apparition, and the hotel maid can’t awaken him and so is panicking, assuming he’s dead. That has to happen in that line of work reasonably frequently, right? Even in the real non-Supernatural world.

02:40 – Sam’s quest to be more Dean-like includes day drinking.

03:42 – Sam’s drinking is to drown his sorrows around Dean’s demon deal. Assume the next couple of dialog beats are Sam’s “You need to want to be saved, Dean” stuff and Dean playing it off with false bravado, pretending not to be scared.

05:03 – I definitely want to stay at the hotel in the teaser, even Bobby’s hospital bed has less-clean pillows. Dean was Bobby’s emergency contact under the alias “Snyderson,” which is what got the Brothers Winchester there.

05:55 – Bobby apparently hid his wall o’ crazy hunting research in the hotel room wardrobe. And it’s kind of impossible to interpret. The boys do see a name – Dr. Gregg, who apparently died by falling asleep and never awakening. Dean volunteers Sam to translate the wall o’ crazy while he interviews folks about the late Dr Gregg.

07:05 – Seems like Dean is following Bobby’s footsteps based on the interviewees description of a prior detective being “A nice older man with a beard.”

08:01 – Dean pulled the old “permanent record” BS on poor Dr Gregg’s assistant ans is now presenting an ID in the name Detective Robert Plant to a new interviewee. I’ve got a Whole Lotta Love for that alias.

09:16 – Apparently this guy couldn’t dream until Dr Gregg gave him some kind of drug thing as part of the sleep studies. Also, “Detective Plant” is empathizing way too much with the guy’s beer and acid trip comparisons for a real detective…

10:50 – Sam Winchester drops by the episode again to play Mr. Exposition and explain about the African Dream Root stuff that’s probably going to drive the episode’s plot. I hear the details and inexplicably get this song stuck in my head.

12:15 – Dean comes up with the not-at-all dangerous or insane sounding plan of trying to enter Bobby’s dream to find out more. Sam points out that they don’t have any of the dream root stuff, so Dean ramps up the plans stupidity level by suggesting they use Bela as a supplier. This is sure to end well, boys…

13:01 – Bela shows up while Sam’s alone and takes off her coat to reveal lingerie. I have to assume we’re in someone’s dream sequence right now.

14:00 – In the non-dream world, Bela turned the boys asking for help down, as one would expect.

14:27 – And then she shows up…

15:14 – Bela claims she’s doing it for Bobby, who saved her life once. I assume she’s lying because her lips are moving and sound is coming out. Also Sam’s double-take when Bela takes her coat off is priceless.

16:08 – Sam brings two cups of dream root cocktail, Dean makes a Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz joke. Sam fails to get it and then both myself and Dean wonder aloud exactly how sheltered Sam’s college life was.

16:32 – Apparently part of the dream cocktail involves the body parts of the person whose dream you’re entering. In this case Bobby’s hair. Could be worse.

17:24 – The transition of Dean at the window into the dream world is a really neat, simple effect.

17:49 – It’s Bobby’s house in Bobby’s dream. I think we’re going to see whatever the incident was that put Bobby on the hunter’s path.

20:29 – Seeing as the spooky figure stalking dream Bobby is apparently his wife, I think I’m right. Also, you can tell that she’s kind of evil as she’s wearing a white dress and appears to have bullet wound like blood stains on her neck/shoulder area. I think she’s the woman I misidentified as a banshee earlier. Though you can tell she’s not full on Supernatural evil as she lacks the obligatory blonde hair.

21:07 – Bobby’s dream wife accuses him of stabbing her repeatedly. Her compares her to a rabid animal, so I’m assuming possession or similar.

21:47 – Second interview guy just brained Sam with a baseball bat and revealed himself to be the dream weaver/killer behind the death of Dr Gregg and presumably also Bobby. Trying to figure out how he got some body part of Bobby’s for his Cup O’ Krueger though.

22:31 – Bobby doesn’t believe Dean’s protestations that this is all a nightmare that Bobby should be able to take control of.

22:55 – Something got through as Bobby’s wife disappeared from the dream after Bobby’s efforts.

23:24 – Dean tells Bobby to wake up, he does…

23:26 – …and we cut to the brothers Winchester jolting awake in their crappy motel room.

23:52 – Dean tactfully (for him) asks if the stuff with his wife actually happened. Bobby’s answer “everybody got into hunting somehow.” Says more than any reams of exposition could.

24:53 – Sam asks Bobby the same question I asked at 21:47 – How did second interviewee (his name is Jeremy) get some of Bobby’s DNA for his slumber sipper?

25:00 – Jeremy got Bobby’s DNA by offering him a beer, which Bobby drank. So DNA from saliva then. Which means that Jeremy also has the ability to enter Dean’s dreams. I thought there was too much episode left for the case to be solved this neatly…

26:17 – Bobby’s asking Bela why she’s helping them. I have to assume that if her “Bobby saved my life” story was true that Bobby would know…

27:10 – After a fruitless two-day, heavily caffeinated search for Jeremy, Dean’s decided he’s gonna fall asleep and let Jeremy come to him. Sam responds to this terrible idea by plucking one of Dean’s hairs so that Sam can visit his brother’s dreamscape and thus a million slash fictions were born.

27:57 – These woods could not look more sound stagey if they tried.

28:21 – Lisa is there on a picnic blanket waiting for the boys. On the soundtrack we get a title drop (drink!) courtesy of Mama Cass.

29:02 – Lisa’s disappeared, Jeremy’s appeared. Sam chases the latter, leaving Dean alone in a hallway with wallpaper made from the woods.

30:21 – Dean is confronted by… himself.

30:50 – Dean’s reaction: “I’m my worst nightmare.” Hee!

31:10 – Apparently the dream version of Dean is a manifestation of his death wish/self-loathing tendencies. Seems to be trying to strip away the false bravado thing about that whole demon deal.

32:16 – Dean is trapped in a room with himself, meanwhile Sam “wakes up” in the Impala next to a baseball bat wielding Jeremy.

33:14 – Sam’s confrontation with Jeremy, who’s basically the god of this dream realm isn’t going well, seeing as he’s now tied up and staked to the ground.

33:43 – Dream manifestation Dean is calling out real Dean on all his flaws and inadequacies. It’s a great psychological confrontation and makes points about how Dean is basically a Xerox of Daddy Winchester without his own mind. It’s also really impossible to convey in this format.

35:09 – Especially the culmination where Dean angrily declares “I don’t deserve to go to Hell!” and pumps two shells into the chest of the dream manifestation Dean.

35:21 – Sam’s getting beat down.

35:33 – Dream manifestation Dean isn’t dead, as he awakens and now has the black eyes of demonic possession. He tells actual Dean that this is what he’s going to inevitably become.

36:00 – Sam deals with Jeremy by summoning Jeremy’s abusive father, which abruptly leads to Sam getting the baseball bat and hitting Jeremy in the dream until Jeremy dies(?) in reality. This ends the dream for the brothers Winchester. Probably just as well in Dean’s case.

37:34 – Bobby can’t work out why Bela (who has disappeared) was helping them in the first place. Apparently the thing he did was less “saving her life” and more “giving her a good deal on an amulet.” Bobby tells the boys to check their pockets.

37:54 – And he’s right. Bela stole the Colt from them. Partly their fault for showing her that they had it hidden in the cheap motel safe when she brought them the Dream Root stuff. Mostly Bela’s fault for being a thieving little wench though.

38:19 – Dean’s decided that the boys next hunting target is going to be Bela, which makes sense. He also asks Sam what Sam saw in Dean’s dream and is relieved that Jeremy kept them separated so that Sam didn’t see the Dean on Dean confrontation.

38:42 – Dean finally admits that he doesn’t want to die and go to Hell.

39:19 – We flash back to the dream and see that it’s the Demon-possessed Dean whose finger-snap ended it.

Loved the dream conceit here. It might be a slightly hackneyed concept, but it worked really well here for a number of different objectives, notably the usual suspense/mystery aspect as the boys try to figure out how to save Bobby, who the show explicitly labels as a substitute father figure for the boys (which makes me think his days are somewhat numbered). Then the psychological aspect of the scene with two Deans which really was a centerpiece of the episode for me, and was excellently done with it genuinely looking like there were two Jensen Ackles’ it a lot of the shots.

The episode was slightly filler in that it didn’t really advance the plot of the season in any real significant way (depending on what Bela does with the Colt, I suppose) even in dealing with the Dean Demon Deal. There’s still the minor detail of the escaped army of demons that the boys haven’t dealt with much beyond the seven deadly sins right at the season’s start. I would want to see more happening on that front, but it’s almost like it’s been dropped entirely as a plot.